


Starlight

by The5thCat



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M, Like they're both straight up evil, Medium Slow Burn, Not just a TDP version of the original trilogy, Rating May Change, Rayla is basically a cross between Mara Jade and Galen Marek, Sith Apprentice Claudia, Sith Emperor Viren, Star Wars AU, Themes from all areas of Star Wars, Which I guess makes Callum a cross between Luke and Juno Eclipse?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-18 16:27:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29371569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The5thCat/pseuds/The5thCat
Summary: Once, when the galaxy was at peace, she was just a common girl from the small planet of Xadia. Alongside her parents, she served the royal family of the neighboring world of Katolis, an opportunity that many in her corner of the galaxy would’ve killed for. She was lucky. She had decent clothes, friends to spend her days with, good food… she was set up for a steady, stable life.Then came the Empire.Ten years later, Rayla is Emperor Viren’s personal assassin, the Emperor’s Hand, molded into his secret weapon and trained in the dark side of the Force. And her latest mission, the assassination of a suspected Rebel leader she’s been chasing for years, will take her back to her homeworld for the first time since her parents were slaughtered before her eyes.What she doesn’t know is that her target is a ghost from her past, and the last link to her childhood, when everything was brighter. A split-second decision connects them in ways they never could’ve imagined, forging an unlikely alliance and dredging up feelings she’d buried a lifetime ago as Rayla tries to learn where she stands in the coming war, and who she’s truly meant to be…
Relationships: Callum & Ezran (The Dragon Prince), Callum & Harrow (The Dragon Prince), Callum/Rayla (The Dragon Prince), Claudia & Viren (The Dragon Prince), Ethari & Rayla & Runaan (The Dragon Prince), Rayla & Soren (The Dragon Prince)
Comments: 21
Kudos: 43





	1. Strike and Vanish

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, all. I've been out of the game for a while now but this is an idea I haven't been able to shake. It's still in a rough stage as far as the overarching plot but I figured it was high time to get the first part out there and see if anyone actually wanted to read what I was writing before I continue any further. Right now I have around 12 mostly-complete chapters written up and an outline for the future plot.
> 
> What I've posted was originally two chapters, but I decided to combine them into one in order to get the ball rolling a little. It's not my favorite of the stuff I've written for this thing so far, but meh. If you like what you see, please consider commenting and sharing your thoughts. If you hate what you see, well... also consider commenting and put me through the wringer. All feedback is welcome!
> 
> Thanks to everyone for reading!

**Starlight**

**I. Strike and Vanish**

The city sprawled beneath her, countless stories between her and the street. The Governor’s entourage was emerging from the city hall, the man himself encircled by four burly, armed guards. The stretch of sidewalk from the hall’s door to the street was closed off, throngs of people swarming on either side of the blockers and clamoring.

They were cheers of love. The people of Corulag adored Governor Baglos. He was a portly fellow, his bald head reflecting that his best years were behind him. His robes were ornate, and it was painfully clear that Baglos enjoyed more privileges than his people. Still, that hardly seemed to bother any of his constituents.

Baglos was outspoken on their behalf in the Imperial Senate, railing against Imperial occupations and policies that he felt infringed on the rights of his people. On more than one occasion, he’d publicly championed the days when systems had governed themselves and there had been no “Galactic Emperor” to bow down before. He preached freedom and self-governance and had been resisting the establishment of an official Imperial Academy on the planet for some time now.

Rayla had been sent to assassinate him.

Almost two weeks ago, she’d been handed orders from the Emperor to put an end to Governor Baglos. He’d grown tired of the Governor’s outspokenness, branding him as a rogue official in need of silencing. There were rumors that he had something planned for the next assembly of the Imperial Senate. Rayla did not beg for more details. She merely boarded her ship and set a course for Corulag.

She’d spent virtually all of her time since then stalking Governor Baglos back and forth across the city, getting a feel for his habits and routines as she watched him day and night. Secrecy was the key to her work, not swiftness. If she were to be caught, the consequences would be dire. She was trained in resisting torture, but eventually she would be made to talk one way or another, and once word got out that the galaxy’s supreme ruler had ordered a hit on a legitimate Governor, well… that would give the Empire’s enemies all the ammunition they needed.

Tonight, finally, was her time to strike. The Governor was leaving a meeting with the city’s representatives and would be returning to his mansion in a hovercar. The guard at the front of his entourage opened the door for the Governor, allowing the heavyset, outspoken man to crawl inside. The rest of his guards followed one by one, and as soon as the door was closed, the car began driving away, hovering a few inches above the street as it went.

The cheers of the people that had come to the city hall rang out as the Governor’s car departed, chants of support and adoration. It disgusted Rayla. If only they knew what was about to happen or had an inkling how systematically it would be swept under the rug. How casually a replacement Governor would be appointed, a candidate who was far younger and more loyal to the Empire. More malleable.

Rayla took off in pursuit of the car, stepping away from the ledge she’d been crouched on. She bounded across the rooftop, leaping onto the taut wires that connected the roof she was on to one across the street. She danced across the cables effortlessly, breaking into another run once her feet were back on solid ground. The Governor’s car moved so casually down the street that she could still keep up with it.

Rayla continued the chase, the rooftop ahead taller than the building she was on and therefore not connected by a power line. She’d have to jump. Fortunately, she was more than well-trained enough to clear the gap.

She galloped to the edge and launched off of the ground, boosting her leap with a powerful burst of Force energy. Rayla soared, tucking her limbs closer into herself as she approached the building.

An untimely gust of wind picked up whilst she was in midair, hampering her jump. Rayla adjusted quickly, bringing her arms up and twisting forward so she could land with her hands first on the lip of the rooftop. She dropped just as she’d expected to, somersaulting forward and leaping to her feet to continue running. Rayla glanced over the roof’s edge, spotting the Governor’s car making a left turn to pass underneath her.

Briefly, Rayla reached into her robes, checking to ensure that the detonator was still there. She’d attached a detpack to the belly of the Governor’s car hours ago, but its range was limited. On top of that, she needed as few witnesses as possible. It would’ve been too suspicious to detonate the bomb with the Governor’s car arriving in the middle of rush hour, or when he was returning to it with a crowd of supporters cheering for him. By now, a few hours after nightfall and a few blocks away from the center of the city’s activity, it was almost time.

Rayla kept moving so the car remained in sight. It kept hovering along over the road, driving down several blocks and getting further and further from the city. The traffic around it dispersed with each block, until finally there was only one more car beside it as it came to a stop at a traffic signal.

Rayla leaped onto the next rooftop and grabbed the detonator. She paused, as she often did before these things. But as she always did when such a problem arose, she looked inward and focused. Hesitation was failure and could not be tolerated. So, she would not fail. She settled upon all of her anger. Her pain. Stewing, ruminating in it. Letting it guide her.

It made the task easy.

She squeezed the button atop the little stick, expecting the car to erupt in a terrible blast of smoke and fire. But there was no explosion, no eruption of death and destruction. The car rested at the intersection, and Rayla pressed the trigger again, only to receive the same effect.

 _“Fuck,”_ Rayla hissed.

Defective. Of course.

The Governor’s car started moving again, unperturbed. Rayla darted forward, bounding to the next rooftop. She’d have to follow the car herself. She should’ve brought a speeder bike. If she hadn’t been so cocky, she might’ve. Contingencies were a key piece of any plan, and she had come up with none for tonight. It was a good thing she wouldn’t have to file a log or report of some kind that would make her look bad after the job was done—the perks of carrying out illegal missions.

Fortunately, the city was starting to fall away. The Governor’s Estate was visible up ahead, situated in its own enormous lot on the city’s edge rather than its center. The car continued down the street and eventually pulled into the great open space in front of the Estate. Rayla stalked them all the while, keeping to the shadows of the rooftops. She paused on the edge of the nearest building, crouching and watching as the Governor emerged from the car, flanked by his guards from earlier. They shuffled towards the Estate and the car drove away. Rayla ceased paying attention to it now, keeping her eyes on her target.

Once the Governor and his group were inside the Estate, Rayla got moving. She slid down the smaller building next door, dropping seamlessly into the shadows of the ground. She then darted forward, keeping away from the mounted lights peppering the Estate’s expansive grounds. The grass was damp, perhaps recently watered.

The Governor’s Estate was a sprawling two-story mansion. It was built like a giant prism, walls made of durasteel rose from the earth, staggered by balconies that surrounded the structure in its middle. A domed structure topped the mansion, and a large copper statue of some kind of flying creature was mounted to the roof. Something native to Corulag, perhaps?

It had been constructed after the Empire’s annexation of the planet. Baglos was Corulag’s second Imperial Governor, appointed to replace an older one that had fallen out of optimal health, and he’d since forgotten his place. Tonight, his reign was slated to end.

Rayla reached the base of the Estate and clambered up the wall, using the Force to keep herself moving. Her fingers found the various grooves in the wall that she could use as handholds, launching herself further and further up in little bursts. She closed in on the underside of one of the balconies and leapt out with a Force-assisted bound, catching her fingers on the edge and quickly bringing her other hand up in order to keep her balance.

Once she stopped swinging from the impact, Rayla pulled herself up, lifting her entire body over the edge of the balcony with only her arms (her work required her to be in tip-top physical shape, even if her body didn’t necessarily show the evidence of how strong she was). She pressed her back against the wall beside a window, taking a moment to examine the grounds beyond the house before she peered through the window.

The inside was dark, but Rayla’s eyes were sharpest in the darkness, and she saw no one wandering the halls. She reached out with the Force and undid the window lock from the inside, carefully sliding the window itself open until there was enough space for her to slither through. Once she was on the other side, she closed the window just as quietly as she’d opened it and darted through the Estate’s dark halls to search for the Governor’s bedchamber.

It was too easy to find. There were two doors, each bearing a round handle piece that dangled from the ornate mouth of a catlike creature, the busts fashioned from gold. Rayla snorted. Only the most powerful man on Corulag would decorate his doors in such an obnoxious fashion. She gently pushed open the doors, finding no one inside, and slipped through, closing the doors behind her.

It would be easiest to wait. She had all night, after all, and the Governor would believe himself safest in his own chambers. She wouldn’t have to contend with any guards this way.

Governor Baglos’ bedchamber was opulent, to say the least—more opulent than any such facility on the rest of the planet. Rayla wondered, briefly, if Corulag’s people would love Baglos so much if they knew the extent of the luxury that he lived in. The planet was comparatively poor as far as the Core Worlds were concerned. A large number of credits that could’ve been used to boost the citizens of Corulag had instead been invested in enhancing the Governor’s Estate.

All the more reason to take Baglos out, she supposed, to spare Corulag from his hypocrisy. An unwritten benefit of her mission, she supposed.

Rayla waited in the bedchamber for over an hour, spending her time scouting out the best places to hide and lie in wait. She settled for the dark corners of a closet. When the bedchamber doors finally opened, Baglos entered the room alone. Rayla peered through the gaps in the closet door, backing into a collection of opulent clothes as he approached the closet. He opened the door but did not turn on the light, finding a simple set of nightclothes just inside the door.

Rayla remained deathly still as he took the clothes off of their racks and returned to the main room, slinking out from her hiding place to peer through the gaps in the door again as he changed. She was a predator, and Governor Baglos was her prey.

Slowly, Rayla emerged. She slid the door open with the Force and slithered out, a beast prowling from the darkness. The Governor was rifling through a small bag that had been laid to rest on the blankets of the bed, oblivious to her approach.

In one swift, sagacious move, Rayla trapped the Governor in her grip, her hand clapping over his mouth to keep him quiet as she pressed the dormant emitter of her lightsaber against his back, keeping it at the ready.

“Governor Baglos,” Rayla hissed, “I’d advise you not to scream.”

She graciously peeled her fingers just slightly away from Baglos’ mouth, still close enough that she could quickly silence any cry for help. She flicked her gaze up and down the Governor as she did so. If he’d been wearing boots, he would’ve been shaking in them. She could _feel_ his fear as if it were a tangible thing she could touch, bubbling out of him as if from a cracked water pipe.

“W-w-who are you? What do you want?” There was a certain satisfaction to seeing such a brazen man break down so easily. In the Senate and before the general public, he faced down the Empire and the Emperor himself with such boldness, but behind the closed doors of his own chambers, he seemed little more than a mewling whelp.

“Don’t worry about it,” Rayla said. She flipped the switch of her emotions, turning them off and focusing on the Force roiling within her. On the fear she could use as a power source.

“An assassin? An anarchist?” Baglos pressed, still frozen by the feel of the dormant weapon resting against his back.

“No, but this will be blamed on them,” Rayla said.

The realization dawned on Baglos, and Rayla felt the man’s muscles go rigid. “Viren,” he said with a shiver, and Rayla immediately covered his mouth with her hand again, muffling him. She whispered into his ear.

“Crawl beneath your blankets. Quietly.”

Baglos obeyed, fumbling as he walked around the perimeter of the bed and pulled back the blankets. His entire body was quaking as he climbed in, never allowing Rayla out of his sight. “You don’t have to do this,” said the old man, “I can pay you handsomely.”

“Credits mean nothing to me.”

“Then I can help you in other ways,” Baglos tried, desperate.

Rayla reached out with the Force, catching the governor by airway and taking his breath. He mewled pathetically as he gasped for air, clawing for the life that was suddenly being squeezed out of him.

“You should already be dead,” Rayla said, voice at a whisper. “I placed that detpack under your car so I wouldn’t have to come here, so this wouldn’t be personal. Lucky you, I guess.” Baglos wheezed, begging for air, but Rayla knew she couldn’t give any to him. He had to die, and she had to cover her tracks, so the Force was the only option. It would be much easier to blame Baglos’ death on something like poisoning if there were no lightsaber wounds marring his body.

Rayla closed her eyes to avoid watching the life leave Baglos’ eyes. It had never been something she enjoyed. She focused on the Force, on the palpable fear spilling off of the governor in waves. It would see her through. A moment later, Baglos’ whimpering ceased and Rayla opened her eyes once more, looking on his frozen body. She placed a gloved hand across his chest and found no sign of life, no rhythm to his heart.

He was dead.

Rayla examined her work and gathered up any shreds of evidence she could find. Deeming her work done, she made her way out of the mansion. She retraced her steps, emerging out of the same window she’d entered from without even a hint of trouble.

 _Strike and vanish._ That was what she’d always been taught. That was her job: carry out her master’s will, and then leave no trace.

By midnight, she was long gone from the city and boarding her personal cruiser, the _New Moon._ Rayla used her radio to transmit false evidence, that members of an anarchist cell known for clashing with the Governor’s authorities had been spotted fleeing the grounds of the Governor’s Estate. From there, her master would handle the botched investigation into Baglos’ death and sweep it under the rug, and her hands would be washed clean. Corulag’s branch of the Imperial Judiciary would make sure of that.

Rayla stamped the control button that brought the loading ramp retreating back into place, sealing her off from the outside world. There was a dull hum of machinery as she flicked on the lights and trudged across the belly of her ship into the cockpit, crumpling into the familiar leather seat situated in the center of a maelstrom of controls. In the absence of the Governor’s fear that she had used as fuel, a pit had formed in her stomach, making her sick.

It was the call of the light, a siren song that implored her to walk a brighter path, that maintained that she still could. The light within battled the darkness all around her, fighting to escape before being choked out each time it surfaced.

It had taken years to learn how to close herself off, to harden her heart enough to be able to do what was asked of her in the moment and forget about morals or honesty or righteousness. It was not her place to question her lot in life.

So _why_ did she always feel this way after completing a mission? The gloom made her angry, and the anger made her spiteful. Her spite lent her strength in times like these. She was only following orders. She was the Emperor’s Hand, his weapon of choice when he required a scalpel instead of a sword, and therefore, the blood was not on her hands. It was on the Emperor’s.

The logic wasn’t airtight, but it didn’t need to be, as long as it convinced her. As long as it stifled the acidic taste of her own remorse.

Rayla fired up the engines, fastening both of her hands around the sticks and guiding the _New Moon_ into the air. Corulag’s starry sky stretched before her as she flew up, up, up. Soon she was in the vacuum of space and punching in coordinates for her master’s flagship, currently in orbit above the galactic capital of Coruscant.

The stars dragged across the sky, bending and stretching as the _New Moon_ launched into hyperspace, a tunnel of sorts manifesting around her ship to drive her along. Rayla sighed, her iron grip on the controls at last relaxing as she leaned back in her chair and let autopilot take over.

 _Strike and vanish._ That was her directive. She had done that. The blood did not stain her hands, and she would move on from this as she always moved on from each grisly mission: with guts and determination. When she returned to her home base, she’d train. She’d hone herself into a better weapon. And eventually, if she worked hard enough, she would feel no more, and the call of the light would finally die.

Then she would better wield the dark.

Then, she could better serve the Emperor.

* * *

Hyperspace had always fascinated her.

The technology that made it possible was so ingrained into her head, yet Rayla didn’t actually know how it worked. Well, she knew _how_ it worked, but she didn’t really understand _why_ it worked. She knew that she powered up the hyperdrive, fed the computer her desired destination, and it found the necessary hyperspace route for her to jump through.

Give it a little time ranging from a few minutes to a few hours, and her ship emerged in another area of the entire _galaxy,_ which was pretty damned big.

Most people rarely gave it more thought than that. But Rayla, naturally, was different. How long, she often wondered, had it taken to carve out those hyperspace routes? How many spacefaring pioneers had leaped into hyperspace only to smash themselves to bits in an asteroid field, or met their end by flying into a star, before a single safe lane could be charted? The fact was, one’s life could end faster than an instant by flying through hyperspace, and yet it was as commonplace and natural as spaceflight itself.

That precarious life-and-death balance had always held a certain… appeal. Perhaps she was just crazy. Damaged, somehow. She had spent nearly half of her life brought up by a sadistic Dark Lord of the Sith, after all.

Eventually, the console bleated and snapped Rayla out of her reverie, humming an electronic tone that told her all she needed to know. She was coming up on her destination. Downtime was over.

Rayla fastened her hands on the controls. “Here we go,” she singsonged to herself, trying for a cheerfulness that was impossible to muster. She could do nothing to chase away the dread pooling in her gut.

Rayla tugged the hyperdrive throttle back towards her stomach, slowing the ship so that her ship emerged out of hyperspace. The fluorescent tunnel of blue that surrounded her collapsed, giving way to the infinite black curtain of outer space. Up ahead, a sleek, enormous vessel orbited the planet of Coruscant like an unending, unspoken threat.

The _Dragon’s Fall_ was a marvel of engineering, a dreadnought floating through the cosmos. It served as the Emperor’s personal flagship, a mobile fortress of sorts from which he could both govern and—if necessary—terrorize the galaxy. It absolutely dwarfed even the largest Star Destroyer in the Empire’s arsenal, so much so that from just the right angle, it looked to be even larger than all of Coruscant. Its body was a patterned mix between slate gray and black. Mounted across the flagship’s hull were hundreds of laser cannons and similar armaments, and the gateway to an enormous hangar had been gouged out of the vessel’s center, glowing a bright white in the blackness of space. A long, flat command bridge oversaw the heavily armed ship, promising utter destruction to any who strayed across it.

Fortunately, Rayla got to be above all of that.

Rayla guided her ship closer and the command bridge scanned her in, permitting her to approach for landing. The open maw of the hangar beckoned her closer, a beacon that promised rest and recuperation after her lengthy mission.

A small cluster of TIE Fighters departed as she drew close, trading places with her. With practiced ease, Rayla piloted the _New Moon_ into the hangar. Dozens of troops meandered around, clearing a path as they saw her ship slip inside. Rayla gently tilted the controls, pivoting her ship around before activating the landing gear and descending. She felt the gear lift the _New Moon_ up as it pressed into the floor, supporting the shuttle’s weight.

After a moment, the console bleated to indicate the ship was stable and Rayla spun around in her chair, planting her feet on the floor and rising. Her jet-black robes flowed behind her as she walked toward the back of the ship, dancing in some imperceptible breeze. She crossed from the cockpit to the loading bay and pressed her fist against the large control button on the wall console. The mechanism hissed and the floor opened up, a ramp slowly breaking off of the ship to allow her exit.

An officer was already waiting at the bottom. His uniform was a dark slate color, and his left chest was festooned with a combination of red-and-blue squares that denoted his rank. Rayla didn’t care what his rank was. All that mattered was he answered to her.

“My Lady Hand,” said the officer, “We’re pleased to welcome you back.”

Rayla made no move to acknowledge his greeting, resolute in remaining all business as she walked past him. “Is the Emperor on board?”

“Yes, My Lady Hand.” The officer turned on his heel to follow, tailing her at barely a pace behind. “He’s in his chambers, awaiting your return.”

“Good.”

Rayla felt the officer stop in his tracks as she kept walking. Her tone was clear—he was no longer needed. Alone once more, Rayla powered through the hangar in search of the nearest door. Troopers clad from head to toe in red armor looked her way as she passed, and Rayla could feel their fear. It felt almost ironic. The soldiers’ numbers gave them strength. If they wanted to, they could strike her down via the fire of a hundred blaster rifles. But they feared her, for she had been trained by the Emperor himself. They _knew_ to fear her, because they knew to fear the Emperor.

Rayla needed only to send one look into the visors that covered their faces to make them avert their gaze.

The blast door leading out of the hangar slid open as she approached. The corridor beyond was dull and monotonous, identical to all the others that spanned the sprawling ship. The floors and walls ranged on a diverse scale from obsidian to anthracite, illuminated by long clusters of round electrical lights lining the grates in the walls.

Her master’s chamber was in the center of the enormous Destroyer, easy enough to access from the main hangar she’d landed in. It was a straight shot. Rayla stalked through the halls, making each turn as she had a thousand times before and descending each staircase until she was in the Emperor’s corridor.

The hall was utterly barren, and she knew full well why. Only a select few were allowed to tread the path and enter the Emperor’s throne room. Rayla happened to be one such individual.

Rayla’s footsteps echoed in the empty hall as it stretched on, seemingly endless. Her jet-black robes billowed in her wake, her pace brisk and purposeful, but concealing a restrained tremor of pride. She’d been gone a long time, and she was eager to report her success. Perhaps she’d be rewarded with a little downtime.

The appearance of crimson armor in the distance was the first sign that she was nearly at her destination. Three men stood guard in front of the imposing automatic door at the end of the hall, clad from head to toe in the special armor of the Imperial Guard. Their armor distinguished them; whereas the Empire’s foot soldiers were typically dressed in bright red armor, the exclusive fraternity of the Imperial Guard instead painted their armor a darker, more bloodlike shade of red. Only the most elite fighters were permitted into the Guard, tasked with the solemn duty of guarding the Emperor’s life against any threat.

The twin guards on either side of the Emperor’s door carried spears in their hands. Rayla had been on the wrong end of those enough times before. With a flick of a switch, the spearpoints would come to life with a paralyzing electricity that caused one’s limbs to lock up and go numb.

Sandwiched in between them was a guard wearing a black cape with his armor, the symbol of the Empire emblazoned across his chest. His helmet was unique, taking inspiration from the legendary helmets of the Mandalorian society, and the wearer was not shy about its influence.

Rayla drew close and the Mandalorian-like guard called out to her way too happily, his voice slightly distorted from beneath his crimson helmet. “Rayla, how’s my favorite Xadian assassin?”

Rayla stopped in her tracks. Soren’s tendency to be unprofessional would’ve been refreshing if she were not so conditioned to shield every emotion she had beyond anger and malice. As it was, he generally annoyed her most of the time.

“Captain Soren. I need to get inside to see the Emperor.”

“Sure thing,” Soren said with too much cheer. “Right this way. Boys? Hold it down.” Soren turned on his heel, gesturing for Rayla to follow. The door to the Emperor’s chamber broke apart into six pieces as it slid open, deliberately designed to be more elaborate than the other gates on the ship. Right inside was a staircase, ruddy red lights illuminating each step from below. The door sealed behind them as they crossed over, plunging Rayla and Soren into near darkness. He led her up the steps, each little footstep like a thunderclap against the metallic steps.

The stairs came to an end at the peak of a narrow corridor that expanded into a sprawling throne room of sorts. The dome-shaped chamber was almost absolutely black, the only light in the room coming from the stairwell leading into it.

“My Hand.”

Another pocket of crimson lights flickered to life from the floor, revealing the visage of a dark, robed figure seated in the throne across the room. The little hairs on the back of Rayla’s neck stood on end as she looked upon her master.

The Emperor’s voice was cold and calculating. “Leave us.” Soren bowed his head respectfully and retraced his steps, slinking back into the stairwell. The noise of his footsteps receded bit by bit until Rayla could no longer hear them.

Her master’s glare rooted her in place the entire time. She could only stare. In the darkness, the color of his eyes was amazingly visible, a callous and frightening golden hue piercing the black of the chamber. The pale light rising up from beneath the throne gave just enough light for her keen eyes to discern the rest of the Emperor’s features. Viren’s head was narrow, and his hair enclosed his face like a picture frame. His jaw was square and strong.

His skin, however, contradicted all of the strength that the shape of his face might’ve suggested. His once-healthy pale flesh was now scarred, ravaged from decades of indulging in the dark side of the Force. Muddied blotches of corruption stained him, and streaks of grey infested the thickest hair at the crown of his head and his chin.

Still, the Emperor was no less petrifying. Even with his withered appearance, there was an undeniable power in his very aura. It could not be anything less for the galaxy’s most supreme individual. Emperor Viren had not risen to his present station, had not built an empire that spanned the galaxy, without an unmatched strength in the dark side.

Once, he had held a Sith name, but ever since ascending to his self-appointed post of Galactic Emperor, the mantle had been lost to history. To Viren, it was a piece of a bygone era, a time when Sith such as himself had hid in the shadows behind rumors and a whispered name. Today, all knew to fear him, Sith title or not.

Rayla approached her master and carefully dropped to one knee. She reached behind her back and unhitched the lightsabers resting there, revealing them and setting them on the floor in front of her in a show of respect before bowing her head. Disarming herself before her master.

“I trust your mission was a success,” Viren said. It was not a question, but rather an assumption that dared Rayla to admit failure.

“Yes, my master,” said Rayla, “The Governor of Corulag is dead.”

“Very good. Are there witnesses?”

“None. The crime will be blamed on an anarchist cell in the city. Evidence has already been planted and a battalion will be dispatched to apprehend any suspects.”

“Good,” Viren drawled, only barely praising her. Starlight flickered at his back, dots of white intruding through the window. “I have another task for you.”

Rayla flinched. _So soon?_ Usually she had time to recover, to train and prepare. Assignments so close together were exceedingly rare.

She did not dare show the weakness her thoughts were suggesting. She only continued to bow her head, subservient even as bile rose in her throat. Hidden in her fear of her master was sheer hatred, but she forced it down.

“What is your bidding, my master?”

“A transmission arrived yesterday from Moff Saleer. A familiar enemy appears to have resurfaced. The rebel conspirator called Nubis.”

Rayla’s head snapped up at the sound of the name, her throat locking up. For a moment, she struggled to speak. “Where?” was all she said, the word coming out with a gasping hiss. She sensed the smirk on her master’s face.

Nubis was Rayla’s most frustrating foe. He was an enigma, known to the Empire only by his apparent codename. He had bounced around the galaxy for two years now, and Rayla had been dispatched to find him on at least five separate occasions.

Each time had ended in failure. Each time, once she had gotten close, Nubis had slipped away like sand through her fingers. Rayla could never tell if he had known she was coming, if he had just been absurdly lucky, or something more in between.

And each time she had returned empty handed, her punishment had been severe. She was the Emperor’s Hand, his blade in the dark when he required secrecy. _She did not fail._ Viren had made certain that she regretted her failure through all manner of devious torture, from barrages of Force lightning to starvation to mental torture. Each time he had shown another layer to the depths of his cruelty.

She would not fail again.

Viren smirked down at her. “Katolis,” he said calmly. Rayla stiffened, immediately recognizing her mistake and trying to relax. But the Emperor had seen her reaction all too easily. “Will this be a problem, my Hand?”

Rayla lowered her head. “No, my Lord. It will be of no consequence. It will be nice to return and see how the Empire has improved that world.”

“You won’t be there to sightsee,” Viren said, a hint of venom in his voice. Rayla bit back the instinct to retort. “You will find Nubis, gather what information you can on his dealings with the Rebel movement, and put a _final_ end to them.”

A simple task, and one that she had done more than once in the past. The Rebellion had grown in strength ever since her secret appointment as the Emperor’s Hand, digging their roots across the galaxy. She had hunted down several contacts across the stars, but with each one she silenced, it seemed that two more took their place. Sometimes more.

Nubis was the exception. He was smart and elusive, inexplicably escaping her reach on too many occasions. Her last search for him had been five months ago, and Rayla intended for his previous escape to be his last. She prided herself on her efficiency, and this one Rebel served as damage to her reputation. Without him, her record would’ve been absolutely perfect.

He was the source of all her humiliation, all her suffering, and all of her pain.

Which made him the source of her strength.

And if she had to go back to the last planet that had welcomed her with open arms in over ten years to put an end to those things, by all that was holy, she would.

“It will be done, my Lord.”

“You were weak when I found you," Viren drawled. "Now your hatred has become your strength. I trust you will not fail again." His tone underscored the veiled threat, an obscure suggestion of what would befall if she returned empty handed yet again. There was no telling what he would do—he had likely already devised the method of torture to be used before she’d even arrived to give her report on Baglos.

Rayla nodded carefully—no, confidently. “Your trust will not be misplaced.”

Viren appraised her with a certain kind of stare, drawing his scarred lips in so his mouth was little more than a flat, emotionless line. He nodded almost imperceptibly, and Rayla knew that was her cue to go.

With only her mind, Rayla recalled her lightsabers to their proper place, levitating them up and into their sheaths against her back. She rose almost elegantly to her feet and turned on her heel. Though she moved with a carefully measured pace, Rayla was absolutely fleeing from the room. The longer she lingered, the more the dread festered in her gut.

She stalked down the steps to the automatic doors, holding her breath until she was out of the darkness.

* * *

Rayla retraced her steps down the corridor, returning to the awfully monochrome belly of the flagship. Troopers marched back and forth, their cherry-red suits of armor an eyesore with so many of them in such a small space.

Her quarters weren’t far. Rayla took a left once she reached the main corridor, shuffling along until she reached the small room that was her home. The door slid open as she approached, a welcoming chime coming from the little console built into the wall. The room was modest; a small bed with black sheets and blankets was braced against the far corner, a sleek desk cluttered with holomaps and various gadgets as well as a display stand for her lightsabers on the other side, and a small lavatory next to it that served as its own little room.

Hardly the most pleasant place to sleep, but Rayla supposed she was rather high up on the ranking of sleeping arrangements for the people of the galaxy. There were trillions out there that slept in worse conditions.

Rayla wasted no time. She stuffed a change of clothes (which were just as dark as her standard robes) and rations into a small leather pack, as well as a few necessary items. She always took the bare minimum with her. If she ended up needing food, she knew how to forage in most ecosystems across the galaxy. Her stays were almost never long, but she knew how to be prepared while taking as little supplies as she could.

Once she was done with her quarters, she returned to the cluttered hallways of the _Dragon’s Fall_ and made her way to the hangar. Katolis was a fair distance away, resting in the cradle of space just between the Mid Rim and the Outer Rim—a thriving world in a largely unstable region of the galaxy.

Rayla didn’t get very far before she was accosted by a trooper clothed in crimson. The armor’s different shade made the soldier stand out, as did the crest on his breastplate bearing the insignia of the Empire. His most distinguishing feature, though, was his voice. His terribly annoying voice.

“Rayla, just who I wanted to see! How’s it hanging?”

Rayla made sure to roll her eyes especially hard. “I’m fine, Soren. Why aren’t you at your post?”

“Being the captain of the Imperial Guard has its perks.”

“I don’t think that includes bothering me.”

“Sheesh,” Soren complained, “Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed.”

Rayla barely resisted rolling her eyes a second time. She didn’t have to divulge anything that she was up to—she did, technically-though-not-officially, outrank Soren—but as much as he annoyed her sometimes, he did have a way of making her talk. He could be a nice sounding board for the things on her mind. “If you must know, I have another assignment from the Emperor. We’ve tracked down Nubis again.”

The captain of the Imperial Guard paused. “Oh. Nubis, huh?” Soren said. He tilted his head down and removed his helmet, freeing his thick hair. The back and sides were darker than the tangled fringe up top, which he had taken to bleaching a few years back. “That’s the one who always escapes, right?”

“It was. That won’t be happening this time,” Rayla said harshly, “He’s hiding on Katolis now.”

Soren snorted. “Well, it shouldn’t be that hard to find him, then. Katolis is tiny.”

“He’ll make it difficult in his own way, but yes, it should be.” A little bug in the back of Rayla’s brain chuckled at her. If only Soren knew.

“I’m sure you’ll catch him. You know what they say, if you fail enough times, eventually you’ll succeed.” That wasn’t exactly the saying, but Rayla chose not to concern herself with it. “Just spare me the gory details when you get back, please.”

The oddest thing about Soren and his military service was how much he actually disliked violence. Perhaps that was why he was on the Guard, because they saw almost no actual action. No one ever came at the Emperor, and though the Rebellion had been gaining steam, there was still no widespread armed conflict that might see them try to change that. Soren was perfectly willing to fight, and he was very good at it, but he enjoyed it much more when it was all for show.

Rayla suspected that if he could choose, Soren would gladly elect to not have to kill anyone ever again. He had taken life before, and on one or two occasions he had confided in her about how it had actually made him feel. He didn’t enjoy it. What he didn’t seem to realize—at least not when she was around—was how lucky he was. He was a military man in a position in which his likelihood of killing another was almost pathetically low. Rayla could never be so lucky. Killing was the way of her world, the axis that her universe spun on.

Though Rayla absolutely didn’t need him to, Soren escorted her the rest of the way to the hangar. She supposed it wasn’t so bad. People would always clear a path for the captain of the Imperial Guard and the Emperor’s Hand when they were walking side by side. _Always._

They reached the doors to the hangar, which opened much more quickly than those that sealed off Emperor Viren’s chamber. Rayla and Soren assimilated into the clamor of activity going on and crossed the enormous room.

Rayla spotted her ship, the _New Moon,_ and gained a slight spring in her step. The _New Moon_ was a heavily modified transport ship, retrofitted with one of the more powerful hyperdrives in the galaxy and flaunting a gun on its belly. It was painted a metallic navy blue with trims of black and green, a combination of colors from the kinds of clothes she had worn before she was taken in by the Empire.

Though she had her private quarters on the _Dragon’s Fall,_ the _New Moon_ was practically her home on most days. The vessel was her pride and joy.

And _someone was touching it._

Rayla’s eyes narrowed as she zeroed in on a robed figure standing before her ship. The figure was slim and doted on the spacecraft in an almost insidious manner, ordering around a contingent of workers that darted back and forth around her ship.

“Who…?” she blurted, squinting to get a better look at the jet-black robes. The stranger’s hood was down, letting her long black hair flow free. The ends of the intruder’s hair were dyed a vibrant purple, and Rayla realized who she was about to have to deal with rather quickly after noticing the detail. “Claudia,” she said through gritted teeth, forgetting that Claudia’s own brother was right beside her and not much caring.

Fortunately, Soren didn’t take offense. He knew that they didn’t get along, so he spoke up first as he and Rayla reached the _New Moon._ “Uh, hey, Clauds,” he said, “Whatcha doing here?”

Claudia turned around and beamed in a way that made Rayla sick to her stomach. “Oh, Soren! And Rayla, too. Perfect. I was just making sure the men had Rayla’s ship running and ready to go. She has an important mission.” Claudia ran her fingers through her black hair. Her robes were decorated with red trim down her torso, and a necklace studded with a gleaming green gemstone hung down from her neck and rested against her chest.

Somehow, Rayla didn’t buy that one bit. “Right. Now please step away from my ship. I’m on a tight schedule.”

“Yes, of course, to catch that criminal, Nubis. We don’t want him getting away again, after all,” Claudia said, and Rayla’s blood was starting to boil already. Claudia was too daring for her own good.

Viren’s daughter—the Princess—was a special case, a prodigy apprenticed to her own father in the ways of the dark side. She had apparently received all of the Force potential in the bloodline, with absolutely none going to Soren (his own training had apparently ended rather promptly a long time ago). Years of training under the same man had done exactly zero wonders for Rayla and Claudia’s relationship; the two were bitter rivals on a good day, and on a bad day, Rayla preferred to avoid Claudia entirely.

Claudia’s repertoire was what made her such a fascinating student to her father. She carried no lightsaber of her own and had no desire to learn to fight with one. Rather, her Force talents had manifested themselves in the form of magick, an odd variety of dark side abilities that even Rayla didn’t quite understand. Claudia’s magick was more diverse than the typical Force user’s talents, and she could do many different and fantastical things with it. As weapons, Claudia carried an extensive collection of vibroblades hidden all throughout her robes, which she often liked to enchant with her magick before throwing them as deadly projectiles.

“Right, exactly!” Soren said all too happily, “So, are you done? Rayla needs to go.”

“Yes, she is done,” Rayla cut in, making a mental note to do a _thorough_ examination of her ship to make sure that Claudia hadn’t sabotaged it somehow. “Thank you for readying my ship, Claudia,” she added, with none of the gratitude that the words implied.

“It was my sincere pleasure, Rayla,” Claudia echoed her distaste perfectly, “And please, do enjoy your little homecoming—for me, if not for yourself.”

Rayla didn’t feel like entertaining the witch any further. She was already tired of having to speak to her—there was simply no way to win. Rayla brushed past Claudia and shouted at the workers bustling around her ship to leave. They dropped the things they were carrying and dispersed as Rayla looked over her shoulder, relieved to see that Soren was leading Claudia far away from her.

Rayla dismissed the last of the workers and ran her inspection alone—she didn’t trust anyone that Claudia had employed to work on her ship. After almost an hour of going through everything, she found nothing noticeably wrong with the _New Moon_ and breathed a sigh of relief. Really, it wouldn’t have made sense for Claudia to sabotage her ship, but Rayla disliked her so much that the suspicion did not feel out of place. The Sith did anything and everything to get ahead, and Claudia would one day be a fully-fledged one once her training was complete, lightsaber or not.

With everything in order, Rayla fired up the engines. She deposited her leather pack in her quarters and checked her plants—she had made a habit ever since taking ownership of the _New Moon_ of using the terrarium that had come built into the back, collecting seeds from the different planets she visited while on missions to create a group of exotic flora in her own ship. Everything appeared to be growing in nicely, even the snow weeds from Hoth.

Rayla strolled to her chair in the ship’s cockpit, twirling it around so she could sit down before letting it drift back into place so that she faced forward again. The ship’s computer indicated that all systems were optimal and Rayla fastened her hands around the controls, gently piloting the _New Moon_ out of the massive hangar.

Outer space surrounded her as she emerged from the hangar, an endless collection of stars dotting the black expanse. With one hand, Rayla directed the computer to plot a course for Katolis. The machine did as it was asked, retrieving the planet’s coordinates and guiding her to the nearest hyperspace route.

The trip would take a few hours. Coruscant was one of the Core Worlds near the center of the galaxy. Still, she had been on longer trips before, excursions that had taken her deep into the Outer Rim, not to mention one unforgettable (for the most unpleasant reasons) foray into Wild Space.

The trip length would be fine. It would give Rayla time to plan out her mission. She would catch Nubis this time, extinguish his annoying little life and the stain it left on her record, and return to the Core Worlds a hero—albeit one who had to commemorate her successes in secrecy.

The computer chimed as the _New Moon_ locked into the necessary hyperspace route and Rayla powered on the hyperdrive, taking the throttle and carefully pushing it forward. The curtain of stars before her crackled and bled, streaking past her window as little beams of light as her ship swam beneath the familiar glow of lightspeed.

The ship launched away, her target in her distant sights.


	2. Nubis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fresh off the assassination of a respected Imperial Governor, Rayla's master orders her to track down a familiar foe who has recently resurfaced. This time, however, she will find more than she bargained for...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who commented on the first chapter, I took all of your words to heart. Here's the second chapter of this little story, I hope you all enjoy and will consider commenting again once you're done reading. Hit me with questions, comments, concerns; any and all feedback is welcome!

**Starlight**

**II. Nubis**

_Beep-beep! Beep-beep! Beep-beep!_

Callum snapped awake, lying in his bed. What was this? He’d long since outgrown the days of waking to an alarm chrono. He detested the things. His biological clock was more than capable of waking him at a reasonable time every day. Callum rubbed at his eyes, trying to scrape the sleep-crusties (an old friend’s term for them, not his own) out of his vision.

The beeping persisted. Annoyed, Callum tilted his head to his bedside table and searched for the offending chrono, only to find that it wasn’t an alarm setting at all. His communicator was beeping at him—he must’ve been in a deep sleep to mistake the bleating for a chrono. Why would he have even set one last night, when he hated them so much?

_Beep-beep! Beep-beep!_

That did it. Whoever was trying to get in touch with him was very determined. And at this unholy hour? Well, they’d just have to tolerate hearing back from Sleepy-Irritated-Callum. He snatched up the communicator and barked into it.

“What?”

_“Nubis, do you read me?”_

“I read you, Cross.”

_“Your meeting with Rook is in less than an hour. He hasn’t heard from you.”_

Callum glanced at the chrono on his bedside table and sighed. The hour was later than he’d initially thought. _Right._ “I know, Cross, I know,” he said, using Opeli’s codename. “I lost track of time last night and overslept. I’ll be there, don’t you worry. Over and out.”

Callum placed the communicator back on the table and rolled out of bed, setting his feet on the floor and sitting there on the mattress as he psyched himself up for the day.

He was scheduled to meet one of Opeli’s contacts, Corvus, in about an hour. Corvus was an ex-soldier, local businessman, and part-time Rebel who had volunteered his warehouse to temporarily carry some munitions for the Alliance. The supplies would need to be moved off-world today so he could re-stock his normal inventory (today was a holiday for his employees, so no one would be around).

Callum decided to skip his usual morning shower, knowing that the ride over to the warehouse would take more time than it was worth. He could bathe when he returned, he only needed to be at the warehouse to oversee the handoff before following them off-world later that day. He dressed himself in a pair of brown pants and a blue long-sleeved shirt, stepping into some boots and fixing his hair until it was out of his face.

Once the rest of his morning rituals were finished, Callum slipped into the common room of his penthouse. He had moved out of his stepfather’s home a few years ago for a number of reasons, and while he had wanted a place that was more discreet, Governor Harrow had insisted upon helping him buy a place of considerable comfort.

They’d settled on this nice penthouse apartment. It wasn’t the mansion he’d mostly grown up in, but it was certainly the nicest unit on this side of the city, with granite counters and expensive tile flooring and generally similar luxuries. Callum did have to admit that he was fond of his patio. A long line of floor-to-ceiling windows walled off the outside of the apartment, letting in all the natural light he could ever want. There was even a pool on the end of the patio that overlooked the entire city, its water calm and crystal-clear.

Callum grabbed his cloak. Opeli often insisted that he wear it when on business—the cloak supposedly made him look official. The garment was spun from a pristine white fabric, with garnet and gold trimmings weaving a minimalist design down the sides and hems. There was a hood attached to the thing, but for now Callum left it down. He supposed there was some secrecy to the cloak, and perhaps he needed it sometimes. He was a somewhat known figure to… certain authorities.

His actual identity wasn’t known, of course. Only his codename. Callum—or _Nubis,_ as he was otherwise known—had been working with the fledgling Rebel Alliance since he’d moved out of the Governor’s Estate. They were still highly secretive and largely guerrilla, but since his involvement began, he’d helped the different rebel cells start communicating and join together. That was how the Dantooine base had come to be, a collaboration between rebel cells across the Outer Rim.

Callum worked with Opeli to effectively run the joined rebel cells in this sector of the galaxy. He was more frequently out and about, and his time with the Alliance had brought him a certain amount of notoriety. He’d had assassins sent after him a few times in the last couple of years, but thanks to his network had been able to avoid losing his life.

That was always fun, escaping an assassination engineered by a galactic government that then turned around and denied such things would ever occur under its watch.

Callum hated the Empire. Once, Katolis had been a peaceful planet in a peaceful galaxy. They’d been prosperous and free, and he’d been the stepson of a King. Then the wars had begun, and the Star Destroyers and TIE Fighters had descended on their world and occupied them. His stepfather had been knocked down from King to Governor, allowed to retain his leadership position only out of the new Galactic Emperor’s “good graces”. Ten years later, Katolis was a polluted quasi-industrial planet in a galaxy gripped by fear.

It was why he’d started helping Opeli and joined the Rebel Alliance. And while Callum suspected Harrow had an inkling of what he got up to, they never broached the subject. The Governor couldn’t risk being a known relative of a Rebel, no matter what his personal sentiments were. Callum respected it, even if he wished it could be otherwise.

So, Callum worked to keep his secret identity just that: a secret. Out of sight, out of mind. He’d even helped develop a special radio frequency to conduct all of their business. Today was a simple job. Callum would meet Corvus and ensure that all of the arms he was storing were loaded onto a cargo ship that would be arriving soon, and then he’d head for the Dantooine base shortly after to ensure that everything arrived. If all went right, they’d nearly be supplied for a full-fledged strike against the Empire.

Callum exited his penthouse and tapped the lock button on the console touch screen. The electronic lock bleated at him and he turned his back, approaching the elevator. The penthouse suite took up the entire floor, so the elevator would only reach him if someone called it from his floor or if the front desk authorized it down below.

The trip was largely a blur. Callum left the complex and boarded a train headed in the direction of Corvus’ warehouse. Public transportation was the most inconspicuous manner of travel, even if it took a little longer and left him with less time to get to Corvus’ warehouse when he finally reached the closest stop.

The warehouse itself was a glorified hangar on the west side of the city that rested atop a skyscraper. It glowed under the sun, its pristine silvery-white paint reflecting every last ray that fell upon it. Not exactly the most discreet meeting place, but there were enough ships slicing through the Katolan skies these days that no one would notice one more.

Callum rode the elevator up to the warehouse’s level. The corridor was deathly silent when he emerged, and he reached back to finally tug his hood up. Best to be safe.

Corvus was loitering around the corner, sitting at a desk and typing away on a console. He probably had an employee that could do what he was doing for him, but with the day being a holiday it made sense that he was alone. He was probably waiting for him.

The ex-soldier noticed him out of the corner of his eye. “Nubis. Right on time,” Corvus said. He pressed a button to power down the console.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Rook. Is everything ready?"

“Sure is. I just got word that the ship is coming down from orbit. Shouldn’t be more than a few minutes.”

“Great. Let’s go greet our friends.”

Corvus rounded the desk to fall into step with Callum, guiding him down the hallway. It was quiet—Corvus’ business wasn’t the only one to hold court on this floor of the building, just the largest (the warehouse was all theirs, as well). If the rest of them were observing the holiday as well, that was even better.

The lack of conversation was oppressive, but necessary. Though they were sure the building was secure, it was better to speak as little as possible, especially about casual matters. Though the Empire largely left Katolis alone, it could withdraw that goodwill at any time, which meant there was always a lingering possibility of spies. Unlikely, sure, but Callum was not particularly fond of unnecessary risks. Taking chances was how people got killed.

Corvus led him around the corner toward the warehouse. The walls were a drab gray all the way down, the only deviation in color coming from the piercing rod-shaped lights nestled in the crooks between the walls and the ceiling. Boring and businesslike, just like most places in the galaxy these days.

A console built into the warehouse door scanned a little badge dangling from Corvus’ vest and bid them entry, the door smoothly sliding open. The beeping of astromech droids filled the air, creating a chronic noise that echoed off of the warehouse walls. The facility was filled with various crates labeled with long streams of text in a number of different common languages.

“Welcome back to my pride and joy."

Callum smirked. “It looks exactly the same as last time.”

“Oh, please,” Corvus said, feigning indignation, “I have tons of goods sitting in here now that I didn’t have the last time you were here.”

There was a rumbling sound coming from outside. Instinctively, Callum knew the pickup team was here. “Maybe I’ll have a chance to see them for myself another time,” he said, gesturing to the opening of the hangar as an unmarked cargo cruiser started to drift inside.

“Indeed,” said Corvus. He looked past Callum and clapped his hands together. “R7! Gather the others to help load up that order I just logged.” An astromech droid shrieked in answer and scuttled off to find its mechanical brethren. An R3 unit wheeled around the corner as the R7 sent out a call to action, closely followed by an R4 droid.

The cargo cruiser settled down on the ground, parked a safe distance from them and positioned so as to easily be able to fly out. There was a hiss of steam and the loading ramp broke off. Callum rolled his shoulders. Straightened his posture. Put on his best smile.

Time to get to business.

* * *

The _New Moon_ rocketed out of hyperspace, a missile emerging from the distant stars to float in the blackness. The planet of Katolis appeared before Rayla’s eyes. Though it looked nearly as large as every planet did upon reaching orbit, the Outer Rim world was actually rather small, though it was the second largest in the cluster (behind only Xadia).

Rayla’s gut churned as her ship drifted into orbit. It had been ten years since she’d been here. She wondered just how much it had changed. King Harrow, she knew, was now Governor Harrow, allowed to retain his leadership of the planet in exchange for being knocked down a number of pegs in the pecking order. She also knew that Governor Harrow was quite indifferent of anti-Imperial sentiments on his planet. There were some who suspected the Governor was a Rebel himself, but there had never been any evidence that pointed to such a conclusion, nor warranted an investigation. If the information she got out of Nubis was significant, there was a decent chance that could change very soon.

She hoped it wouldn’t.

Rayla breathed. “Alright,” she muttered, willing herself to ignore that this planet had been her home for the first half of her life. Katolis was just another world, and it was housing her target. “Where are you, Nubis?”

Rayla piloted the _New Moon_ down and reached over to her scanner, injecting her ship’s antenna into the planet’s communications array. As an agent of the Emperor, she had unlimited authority on the airwaves. She could scour through any frequency she desired almost unmolested, and those that gave her trouble were easy enough for her computer to break into.

Like a knife, Rayla cut through the atmosphere, descending until she was at street level and could join the throngs of others that hovered above the city. It was for the most part much like she remembered—Katolis’ capital city was a little more industrialized, but not much larger than it had been before the Empire.

She assimilated into traffic, listening to her radio and combing through every individual frequency she could find. The vast majority of them were busts; amounting to little more than weather and traffic reports, galactic market news, Imperial state media, the list went on.

Rayla ended up flying her ship in huge circles for over an hour, circling laps around the city as the computer juggled at least a dozen different channels.

_“This is Banther-6, requesting location for Nubis pickup.”_

Rayla perked up. They’d dropped Nubis’ codename, which meant they were asking for him. A driver to her left laid on their horn at her and she scoffed, jerking on the controls to drift her ship a little to the right and appease the animated stranger before returning her focus on the radio. She fiddled with the controls to isolate the signal.

A moment later, a response spilled through the radio.

 _“Copy, Banther-6, this is Rook.”_ It wasn’t the artificially modified voice she had come to recognize, but it was something. An ally of Nubis, maybe? _“Nubis is on the way. Meet in 1 cycle at the nest.”_

_“Copy, Rook. Over and out.”_

Rayla smiled inwardly and punched her throttle forward. With her free hand she dialed in a few commands so her computer would trace the signal. Then, she returned her focus to piloting her ship, weaving through traffic with a purpose so she could find a place to rent a vehicle. She couldn’t very well pilot the _New Moon_ to wherever this so-called ‘nest’ was—it would be all too easy to get pointed out. She might as well show up waving an Imperial flag over her head.

Fortunately, there were plenty of such establishments where she could pick up a more covert means of travel. Rayla exited the main road and piloted her ship closer to the city, finding a wide-open public hangar to park the _New Moon_ in.

As soon as her ship touched down inside, Rayla was launching out of her seat. She inserted a small device into her ship’s computer to load data into that would let her track the Nubis signal remotely, and then pulled her hood up over her horns. Her cloak billowed behind her as she walked down the loading ramp, her lightsabers offering a comfortable weight on her back.

The hangar was packed with people clothed in matching uniforms for whatever local company ran the hangar. Rayla didn’t pay any attention to it. The nearest employee was a Rodian with blue skin, and she promptly approached him.

“Got any bikes for rent?” she asked, and the Rodian spluttered out an answer in garbled Basic. She understood enough from his broken speech and hand gestures to get the idea. “Keep her ready to fly,” she ordered, pointing a finger back to the _New Moon._ The Rodian agreed and Rayla moved on, following the directions toward a door leading out of the hangar. She passed between countless ships, flicking her eyes back and forth as she passed all manner of people. She received suspicious looks from a few bystanders as she walked, but they all looked away once she returned each of their gazes.

She reached the automatic door leading out of the facility and into a cluttered hallway. There was a desk at the end of it that had a big sign on the wall behind it, a number of different languages painted on the sign to spell out _Rentals._ There was a line of people to the desk, but Rayla quickly decided that she didn’t have time to wait. Her handheld tracker was already reporting that Nubis was on the move. She remembered, vaguely, that one cycle on Katolis was not a long time.

So, she pushed her way to the front, flashing her Imperial identification card and excusing herself with a gruff declaration that she was on official Imperial business to get the other customers to move out of the way. Begrudgingly, they did, and just like that she was standing in front of the clerk, a Sullustan that took one look at her black robes and the tattoos under her eyes and already started to quake in his boots.

“I need a speeder bike.”

The Sullustan nodded and dug through a few files before fishing out a set of speeder bike keys. There was a tag dangling from the keyring with a number scrawled on it in glyphs, and Rayla dug through her pack for a handful of credits.

“150 credits for rest-of-day rental,” the Sullustan jabbered, “Return at noon tomorrow.” He produced a small stack of papers and started to gesture to each spot she was expected to sign. A contract.

Rayla didn’t expect to be on-world for that long, or to have time for a return. “I’ll give you 300 if you forget about the papers,” she offered coolly, already going to the trouble to stack up the proffered number of credits in her hands. The Sullustan flinched, taken aback, and then after glancing about for a moment and gulping, extended his hand.

“Pleasure,” Rayla said curtly, and dropped 300 credits into the Sullustan’s open hand. She snatched the keys from his other hand and followed the signs to the speeder bike garage, her business taken care of just how she liked it: in a matter of seconds. As she walked, Rayla reached into her cloak for a small earpiece and inserted it into her ear canal. The miniature device crackled to life, connected to the rebel frequency so she’d be able to hear any extra chatter that came through while she was on mission.

The speeder bike garage was almost empty, staffed by a pair of workers whose jobs seemed to extend no further than making a round of the garage to make sure all of their bikes were accounted for. Rayla passed them by as she flashed the keys dangling in her hand, finding her designated bike with ease. Swinging into the seat, she inserted the key into the ignition and the engine roared to life, the bike’s shell grunting as Rayla shifted around to position her feet on the pedals. It wasn’t the most well-kept vehicle, but it would do.

Within moments, she was back out in the open on the speeder bike and blazing through the streets. Her tracker beeped noisily in her ear, already plotting out her course for her. Whenever new chatter came through on the frequency, she heard it loud and clear and soaked it up like a sponge.

Eventually, the tracker led Rayla to a warehouse positioned several stories above the ground. She piloted the speeder bike onto the roof, confident there would be a path of some sort leading down into the warehouse’s innards.

The wind was strong, sending her cloak flapping about every which way as she parked the bike on the rooftop. Rayla swung her other leg over the side of the bike and stood on the roof, taking a powerful gust of wind on the chin. She kept her footing and scoured the roof, eventually spotting a ventilation shaft.

Rayla reached down and peeled the grate open, crawling into the shaft before closing it behind her. She crouched in the corridor, eyes quickly adjusting to the dark. The path was narrow, and hot air was being pumped constantly through it, causing her to break a sweat almost immediately.

She stalked down the shaft, careful to keep her footfalls light. She didn’t need to go alerting anyone. She followed the path until she reached a vent cover resting over a few supports that held the roof up. She deftly unscrewed the vent cover with the Force, pushing it open so she could drop down into the crook of one of the supports before looking up and telekinetically screwing the cover back into place.

The lights were not strong in the warehouse, so she was able to remain in the shadows. Rayla hopped across about a dozen supports, following the tracker as its beeps grew closer and closer together. She was lethally graceful as she leaped along, never staying still for more than a second.

The tracker in her hand made a little sound that meant she was as close to her target as she could get. Rayla looked around below her, seeing nothing but a couple of astromechs milling around the warehouse. The place was empty, save for dozens of heavy crates of assorted goods.

“I should be right on top of him. So where…?” she mumbled to herself, only to stop as a door slid open noisily. Two men walked into the warehouse; one was dark-skinned and had long hair tied into a heavy bun. He wore a sky-blue scarf around his neck, as well as a number of straps and belts all across his clothes that couldn’t possibly be practical. A blaster was prominently displayed at his hip.

The second man was quite a bit more mysterious. He was wearing white robes with red and gold trim on the crest of the hood as well as all the way down his sides and around his waist. The white hood covered his face almost completely from Rayla’s vantage point, but still she recognized his actions all the same. He wanted to hide. They were talking, but about what, she couldn’t tell.

Her attention was pulled away by the noisy entry of a ship into the warehouse from the giant entrance. The vessel was painted a drab gunmetal color and seemed to be an unsuspecting cargo ship by the looks of it. Rayla looked down, though, and judging by the two newcomers’ reactions to the ship’s arrival, it was no ordinary transport. Man-Bun shouted at one of the astromech droids, an R7 unit, to get the other droids for help.

She followed them across the warehouse, well out of sight thanks to being so high up. The two newcomers approached the ship as the loading dock opened up from its belly, spilling out a half-dozen men in matching outfits. How cute. They were wearing undershirts of different colors, but identical leather vests and pants made them stand out. The men exchanged handshakes and launched into conversation, which Rayla desperately tried to listen into.

_“Munitions…”_

_“Base on Dantooine…”_

_“Shipyard…”_ The engines on the cargo ship were too noisy for Rayla to hear much more of the conversation clearly. She settled for just watching and raised an eyebrow as the man with the sky-blue scarf pulled away from the group and returned with a flatbed full of crates hovering by his side.

As the men began loading the crates onto the ship, Rayla produced a homing beacon and dropped it down, using the Force to discreetly guide it down to the front of the vessel’s underbelly where it wouldn’t be seen. She was quick enough to avoid anyone seeing it, and with a few quick taps to her communicator she tethered the homing beacon to the device. Perhaps it would come in handy.

Then, almost as soon as they’d arrived, the Rebels departed the warehouse, leaving Man-Bun and the hooded Rebel alone again. The cargo ship’s engines nearly burst her eardrums as it lumbered out of the hangar. The pilot pushed on the throttle once they were outside, leaving behind a void of silence. As her ears quit ringing, Rayla realized with a start that she could now easily hear the Rebels on the ground talking.

“I should get back. I need to see my brother before I head for Dantooine,” said the man in the robes, “Thanks for letting us use this place.”

“Don’t mention it,” replied the man with the scarf, and after a few more words they sauntered off in opposite directions. Rayla tensed. The man in the robes was Nubis, she had no doubt about it, and with this Rook character heading the other way, she only needed to follow him.

Rayla watched as Nubis left through the door he’d entered in, and she dropped from the rafters to the ground, using the Force to let her run down the side of the wall. She landed on her feet with almost impeccable lightness and dashed for the open doorway. The automatic door began to shut, so Rayla twisted to the side and lunged through the opening, silently intruding into the hall. Down at the far end, Nubis rounded a corner.

Keeping a safe distance away from him, Rayla followed. The hallway was oddly empty, no one else crossed her path as she tailed Nubis. He entered an elevator and Rayla hung back to watch as he turned around once he was inside, facing her now as she peered around the corner of a wall. He never looked up enough for her to see his face, and the doors closed in front of him with a loud _clunk._

 _Shit._ The elevator could take him to who knows where. Rayla paced to the second pair of elevator doors and jammed the call button, reaching out with the Force to get a feel for the elevator coming up to answer her call. She grabbed a hold of the machinery and commanded it to move faster, doing the same once she was on board and descending.

The elevator spit her out into a crowded hallway. Rayla stood on her toes as she walked, searching, and spotted a white hood emerging through the facility’s main doors.

“There you are,” she muttered under her breath, and followed.

Nubis walked pretty nonchalantly, Rayla noticed. He had exited the main doors to the facility and was walking down the sidewalk as if he were just another commoner. No one seemed to pay any attention to the Rebel conspirator in their wake (but then again, that also meant that no one was paying attention to her, the Xadian in jet-black robes). This she didn’t remember about the capital Katolis; the city had always been developed, but there hadn’t been this many people before the Empire. When you passed someone on the street in the capital, that person generally spoke to you or at least looked at you. That was no longer the case.

The Empire seemed to have drained the soul out of Katolis.

Rayla shook away her musing and kept up her pursuit, stalking the white-robed Nubis up a staircase to the public railcar system. From there, she kept her distance, boarding the same car as him at the other end and keeping him in her sight for the ride. Not once did he spot her, and not once did he remove his hood. Rayla wanted to curse at that, she still didn’t even know what her target looked like. This was as close as she’d ever gotten to him—on each of her previous pursuits, he’d slipped through her fingers before she even had a chance to draw close.

When the railcar stopped and Nubis disembarked, Rayla followed, tailing him from there down the street to an apartment building. It was a tall skyscraper, glass windows and some kind of gold alloy making up its frame. Rayla followed Nubis inside after a respectable wait, and just like before in the warehouse, she walked in as he was entering an elevator. He’d removed his hood, but she could only see the back of his full head of hair this time before the doors shuttered.

No matter. Rayla had her ways.

Rayla walked up to the front desk, where a preppy young woman was standing. Rayla cut right to the chase. “Where was the man in the white cloak going?” she asked.

The woman tensed and examined her. Rayla could already tell she would be tight-lipped. She wouldn’t be able to play her ‘Imperial business’ card here, it would only arouse suspicion. Fortunately, there were other options in her bag of tricks.

Rayla placed her hand on the desktop so the attendant could see it, and waggled her fingers as she spoke, grabbing a hold of the young woman’s mind with the Force. “You will tell me where that man was going.”

 _“I will tell you where that man was going,”_ said the attendant, totally enthralled, “He was returning to his penthouse suite.”

Penthouse suite? _Interesting_.

“You will let me follow.”

_“I will let you follow.”_

The attendant looked down at her computer screen. “Please, board the elevator and I’ll let you up,” she said, still unwittingly under the influence of the Mind Trick. Rayla nodded in thanks and stalked toward the elevator. She pressed the call button, and when it arrived, the ‘penthouse access’ button on the inside wall glowed green. Rayla entered and pressed down on the button, and the console made no move to deny her.

The elevator took her up without complaint. Rayla tapped her foot impatiently, and though she wanted to rush out of the elevator as soon as the doors opened, she cautiously peered out and looked down either side to ensure no one was waiting for her. The room outside the elevator was small, and Rayla immediately realized why. There was only a single, resplendent door across from the elevator. _The penthouse suite._

It also had an electronic lock.

Rayla groaned. Fortunately, she had come prepared. She reached into her pocket and produced a small EMP grenade, priming it and attaching it to the electronic console on the door. The resulting pulse disengaged the lock, and Rayla turned the loosened handle and swung the door open.

The penthouse suite was just that: a penthouse. A mansion atop an apartment building. The floors were marble, and the counters were granite, and there were huge viewing windows walling off the inside of the suite from an incredible patio. The patio floors were wood, and there was even a swimming pool that overlooked the rest of the city.

Whoever Nubis was, he was _rich._

Rayla paused in the kitchen, ears picking up the faint, telltale sound of running water. She smiled thinly. Her target was still here. She followed the noise to what she guessed must’ve been the bathroom, and her suspicion was confirmed. Nubis was taking a shower, or perhaps a bath. Wealthy people preferred baths, right?

It didn’t matter. She’d wait for him in his own home before jumping him. She’d get some extra information on the Rebellion out of him, and then she’d strike him down before hightailing it off this world forever. She’d been ignoring it since she arrived on-world, but Katolis was having an effect on her, afflicting her with a throbbing nostalgia for her life before the Empire.

Not for the first time, she missed her friend Callum. What had happened to him after Harrow had been downgraded from King to Governor? Had he grown out of his shell into a charming noble that swept girls off their feet? Or was he still a shy homebody? It made her sad that she’d never get the chance to know. He most definitely thought she was dead.

Rayla planted herself in the darkness of the end of the hallway, slithering in through a door that appeared to lead to a storage room so she could wait. The pipes in the wall that the bath drew from roared with water, so she was able to easily keep a pulse on what Nubis was doing.

Her hands itched, fingers clenching as she yearned to reach for her lightsabers. She was ready to get this mission over with so she could leave Katolis and the homesickness it was making her feel. This sense of longing wasn’t like her.

Finally, the pipes shut off, and Rayla assumed that Nubis was finished with his bath. A few minutes later, her hopes were confirmed, as the bathroom door opened and a man walked out into the hallway, dressed in his pants and tugging a sleeved shirt over his head. Rayla peered out of the storage room behind him and stalked out, light on her feet as she tailed him and reached for her lightsabers. Nubis walked down the hallway back toward the main room, completely unaware of the shadow currently dogging him through his own home.

He was young, Rayla guessed as she stalked him. Fit, too—he wasn’t absolutely bulging with muscle, but there was a lean strength in his back, shoulders, and bottom that she couldn’t miss. He had thick chocolate-brown hair, wet and tangled from the shower, and rivulets of water carefully dribbled down his back, some soaking into the fabric of his shirt. Rayla wondered, briefly, what the rest of him looked like. She was no flirt, but there wasn’t anything wrong with _looking,_ now was there?

Rayla drew close enough and brandished her lightsabers, the cold-blooded hiss of their activation sending a certain shiver up her arms. In an instant, Rayla had the blades curled around the front of Nubis’ neck. The Rebel froze in place, his chin pointed down as he looked at the crimson blades now neatly caging his jugular.

Rayla growled over his shoulder, very nearly pressed against her target’s back as she kept him as close as possible.

“Nubis. It’s so nice to finally meet you.”

The Rebel had the gall to chuckle. The sound was oddly pleasant, like he actually thought the turn of events was funny. “I guess I should’ve expected this would happen. But I always thought it wouldn’t be on my home planet. That’ll show me to let my guard down.”

“I’m going to spare you the banter. You know why I’m here, and you can figure out how this’ll end,” Rayla said, feeling her blood burn the way it always did before a kill. The Force was pumping through her, stoking the darkness within.

“I mean, I can foresee a few different outcomes, but I guess I have an idea what the most likely one is.” There was a bizarre familiarity to the tone of his voice, aloof and sarcastic when he should be quaking in fear and pleading for his life. Like he didn’t know how to stop talking.

“First, I’ve got a couple of questions for you.”

“I bet they’re gonna be about the Rebellion. Maybe you want to know who supplies my munitions, or where our bases are?”

“Precisely,” Rayla snarled.

“Sorry to disappoint, then. I’m afraid I’m drawing a blank right now. I think I’ve forgotten.” Nubis said things in too many words, and it was strange that that was what Rayla noticed about him, along with his surprisingly lean tone. “By the way, what’s that accent? I’m thinking Xadian. Is it Xadian? That’s weird. Xadia’s a pretty anti-Imperial planet in general, so I’m wondering how the Imps have you on their payroll.”

“Maybe I’m not being clear enough for you,” Rayla snapped. She started to circle around him, supposing she might be able to get more out of him if she knew what he looked like and could look him in the eye with a withering glare. She pulled the saber in her right hand away, holding him in place with the one in her left. “If you don’t give me the information I need, I’ll kill you.”

It was a lie; she was going to have to kill him anyway. But she _did_ need the information he could provide. She eyed his cheek as she passed. His jaw was decorated with the faintest hint of stubble, little needles of hair trailing down his skin like sprouting blades of grass.

“See, that’s the thing,” said Nubis nonchalantly. His eyes flicked over to her as she appeared in front of him. “I really don’t think that would be wise. The Governor wouldn’t take too kindly to me being murdered.”

She processed his face upon looking into his eyes. They were so familiar, and… so _green._ There was a vibrancy to them, they pulsed with a life that he had no right to have. His nose was just as she remembered it, and his cheeks had sharpened to give him that strong, defined jaw he hadn’t had as a boy. And as she’d been able to tell from his back, where he had once been lanky, he’d grown lean. He was ten years older, and yet once she got a good look at him, there was no question to his identity.

Every last ounce of Rayla’s composure was swept away as his name rolled off her tongue.

“Callum?”


	3. Seeing Ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Long lost friends reunite, but not nearly how they'd ever expected...

**Starlight**

**III. Seeing Ghosts**

There weren’t many things in the galaxy that surprised her anymore. This… wasn’t one of those.

“You’re the Rebel? _You’re_ Nubis?”

The almost-stranger held his hands cautiously at her, flashing an awkward smile that might as well have dashed the last vestige of doubt from Rayla’s head. It _was_ Callum, there was no doubt. He’d grown so much—she even had to look _up_ to meet his eyes, something she never would’ve imagined having to do when they were younger.

“Guilty as charged,” he said. Rayla shrunk away from him, her hardened stance crumbling as she tilted the lightsaber in her left hand away from his neck. It was hard to reconcile the boy she remembered with the man that was standing before her now. His hair was just as thick and long as ever, but now he was taller, his voice was deeper, and he even had a hint of stubble going on along his jawline.

Rayla recalled all those days spent on a peaceful Katolis, running amok outside the winter lodge with Callum and his little brother, Ezran. She had always been stronger and faster back then, back before she’d been taken.

When Callum spoke again, there was a different gravity to his voice. A pain, she realized, that she wasn’t familiar with. His lofty façade cracked as he looked upon her, drinking in her image as if she were a dream manifested before him.

“Rayla? Is it really you?” he asked, finally showing some sign that _he_ couldn’t believe this, either. The sound of him (considerably deeper than it had once been) made her ears burn like nothing else before. The world seemed to spin around her, and the ground felt almost uneven.

“Rayla,” Callum said, as if her name were a fine wine he couldn’t stop drinking, and he dared to take a step forward. She reacted almost instantly, tightening the muscles in her arm and pointing her lightsaber more directly at him again. He froze mid-step.

“Surprised to see my face?” Rayla said, putting on a mask of disdain that she knew was fake.

“Relieved, more like,” he corrected, a rush of optimism overtaking him. His tongue darted out to wet his lips, and why was she noticing that, exactly? “I thought you were dead. When the Empire came, they killed so many people, I…” He lost himself to a stutter for a moment there, and she thought that perhaps his brain was moving a mile a minute, too. “I should’ve known that you were alive. I should’ve looked for you.”

Rayla shook her head. “You never would’ve found me anyway.”

“I would’ve,” Callum said. “I would’ve searched every system, exhausted every resource…” He trailed off for a moment, eyes lazily drifting away from her before a smile crept onto his face and he locked her in his gaze again. He was beaming. “But now that you’re back…”

He had started to step forward again, and this time Rayla really leveled her lightsaber at him, forcing him back. “You don’t seem to understand what this is. This is an assassination, Callum. I’m here to kill you.”

“You’re here to kill Nubis.”

“Yeah. That’s _you.”_ So, he was still an idiot, at least _that_ hadn’t changed. The crimson blade of her weapon hummed, an instrument of death waiting to be played.

“Only part of the time,” he said, “I’m still me, Rayla. I’m still your friend.”

“You’re an enemy of the Empire.”

Callum inspected her, and he must’ve found the doubt that she was trying to hide—that she was _denying even existed—_ because he frowned at her like she was some sort of… she didn’t even know what. “Something tells me that you don’t believe that.”

“It doesn’t matter what I believe,” Rayla bit back, “It’s my duty. The Emperor wants you dead, and it falls to me to execute his will.”

Callum wrinkled his nose at her. “Well, I’m so glad that I’ve drawn enough of Viren’s anger to be branded an enemy of the state.”

Rayla lowered her weapon again, ears drooping as she staggered back a second time. She turned her back so he couldn’t see her nearly break down. “Why’d it have to be you?” Her voice broke that time, and with a purpose she clenched her jaw as she looked over her shoulder so he would know she was angry with him. “You could’ve had a peaceful life. You wouldn’t be here now.”

“But then I wouldn’t have found you again.”

Rayla would’ve thought herself immune to flattery, but the way Callum spoke made her knees weaken. He was _so_ happy to see her alive and well, their first meeting in just over a decade, and she was supposed to take his life. She set her head in her hands, pressing the cold steel of her sabers against her forehead and listening to the stirring thrum of their burning blades. They seemed to whisper to her, reminding her what she was here to do like a pair of snakes.

But she thought of everything he’d be leaving behind when she killed him. A father. A brother. A _friend_ , or whatever they were to one another now. They’d been apart for half their lives, him thinking her dead and her convinced he would never get to know the truth. Once, she had imagined herself finding her way back to him, before Viren’s “tutelage” had sunk in and her spirit had become twisted and broken.

Now, they were here, an eventuality Rayla never would’ve imagined, and she couldn’t do what she’d been ordered to do. She _wouldn’t._ Not to him.

“Here’s the deal.” Her voice was firm when she met his eyes again, cold and commanding as she turned to face him. For good measure, she raised her weapon at his chest again, though whether it was to keep him back or to keep _her_ back, she couldn’t say. “You tell me what I want to know, and then you go off the map. You don’t resurface again, and then I don’t have to kill you.”

Some part of her knew he wouldn’t accept. It was the Harrow in him. When he set his mind to something, he saw it through. And he had chosen his side. “You know I can’t do that, Rayla.”

Still, she pressed. “You have to,” Rayla hissed, desperation seeping into her blood like a poison. She _needed_ him to obey her, just like she _needed_ air to survive.

“I can’t.”

Rayla forced her eyes shut to fight back the fury. They started to water from the raw anger she was bottling up, and her blood thrummed as the flame of the dark side stoked within her, feeding on her turmoil to grow stronger. When she opened her eyes again, he was still standing there, the glare of her lightsaber shadowing half of his face as a cloud passed over the sun outside and dimmed the room.

“Then I’m sorry, Callum,” she said, willing herself to muster the courage to swing her blades. Maybe, if she looked away from him, she just might be able to do it. Then her mission would be complete, and she could tear herself apart in the aftermath. She tilted her head away from him, trying to force his image out of her mind’s eye. Trying to make her enemy faceless.

She could do this. She _would_ do this.

“I’m sorry, too.”

She felt the burst of energy coming instants before it hit her, but it wasn’t nearly enough time for her to process what was coming _and_ dodge out of the way. The blast lifted her off her feet and sent her hurtling across the room. She lost her lightsabers in the flight, and a second later her back hit the viewing windows. They shattered on impact and she sailed through them, shards of glass raining down around her as she tumbled across the outdoor patio.

Rayla hit the ground and scrabbled for some sort of handhold, but the floor was smooth and slippery, leaving her with no grip to break her slide with. Her momentum kept carrying her and she ended up tumbling over the edge of the patio swimming pool.

Rayla ripped through the surface like a sea creature, spluttering as some of the water went down her throat and up her nose. She looked around for a moment, dazed, and then clawed her way to the edge of the pool and tugged herself up, heaving as she caught her foot on the edge and used it to push herself out of the water. She rolled over once she was on solid ground and laid flat on her back, shivering. Her robes were soaked, sticking to her skin.

Head still spinning, Rayla turned to look at the ruined viewing windows that she’d been sent through. Some of the glass was still hanging on around the frames, but the majority of the glass had been scattered across the patio’s wood flooring, little glittering splinters lying all around.

She also realized, with a start, that there was no one on the other side of the shattered windows. The door to the penthouse suite was ajar, and there was no one in the tiny hallway leading to the elevator. Callum was nowhere to be seen.

Rayla surged to her feet, her drenched robes dropping orbs of water like grains of sand onto the floor. She broke into a run, dodging the upturned shards of glass that threatened her every step. She reached down and snatched her lightsabers up from the ground, sheathing them in their place behind her drenched hood as she ran through the open door and smashed her fist against the elevator’s call button.

She waited, and waited, and then pressed the call button three more times for good measure. Nothing happened. A full minute later, she was still standing there. Callum must’ve only just gotten into the elevator when she regained her bearings, and she was waiting for it to come all the way back up to her.

Rayla spat out a series of colorful curses, holding her head in her hands and scolding herself for letting her guard down so much. Callum had always possessed a special sway over her when they were children. Even with a chasm ten years wide between them, he was still able to disarm her with only his words.

As soon as she was on the elevator, Rayla jammed the ‘close door’ button about a thousand times in the space of a second. Her vexation only grew as the button seemed to not actually do what it was programmed to do.

Did this elevator not _know_ she was on a mission?

When she finally reached the lobby, Rayla nearly tore her way through the doors. She kept her head on a swivel, prepared to be attacked a second time. When no such strike came, she scanned the lobby. There were only a handful of civilians standing around. Most of them stared at her, whispering amongst themselves. Rayla scanned them with a spiteful glare, searching for some sort of recognizable feature that would tip her off, but there was no tangled brown hair or striking white robes in the crowd. He was gone.

Nubis had escaped her again.

* * *

The Governor’s Estate on Katolis was Callum’s childhood home, though it had not always held that name. Before the dark times—before the _Empire—_ it had been the Royal Palace of Katolis. Callum himself had been (still was, technically, but he’d become a pro at dodging those responsibilities) a prince, the stepson of King Harrow of Katolis.

Harrow had been a great king. The people of Katolis had loved him. He was a champion of equality and justice, and despite what he thought, an expert at diplomacy and compromise.

When the Empire had come for Katolis, Harrow had been the only one capable of pacifying the people. The new Galactic Emperor had been impressed with the deposed King, and Harrow’s appointment (or more accurately, demotion) had resulted in a lasting peace for the planet, though the Empire’s reign had brought an urbanization and a population boom that Callum honestly loathed, not to mention an involvement in affairs of state that actually hindered their world.

Katolis, as Callum preferred to put it, was quasi-free; granted enough autonomy in exchange for their compliance that to the naked eye, things were not that much different from the days of the Republic—but to a trained eye like his own, the stink of oppression festered in every corner.

Despite its rebranding upon the planet’s conquest, the Governor’s Estate was always a safe place for Callum, even though the garnet-and-gold banner out front with the uneven towers of Katolis had been replaced by one bearing the Imperial colors and insignia.

Callum parked his speeder bike on the edge of the runway and disembarked, loosening the strap of his bag thrown over his shoulder so it wouldn’t cling to him as tightly as he needed it to on the bike.

The runway in front of the Estate was an ever-busy center of activity. There were twelve landing pads for ships coming and going from the premises. Though the pads were made of durasteel, the ground around them was all concrete that carried a sandstone color, as was the entire outer wall of the Estate.

The entrance was composed of an arch that led inside, no doors to speak of guarding it. Squads of guards marched back and forth and in and out, each of them dressed in spotless, forest green getups with anthracite pants. Identical, standard issue blasters dangled from each guard’s hips.

Harrow had always managed to maintain a personal guard at the Estate, somehow. It relieved Callum every time that he was here—he knew that he could speak freely and not have to worry about the eyes of the enemy being on him. Other than the occasional visit from Moff Saleer or one of his subordinates, there was no Imperial presence at the Estate.

Callum passed under the arch into the palace. His boots sank into the plush carpet that carved a path down the center of the hall and all throughout the castle. He had barely even rounded the first corner when a blur of poufy brown hair nearly tackled him to the ground.

“Callum!” He staggered backwards as the newfound weight crushed into him, managing to plant one foot and regain his balance. He looked down, finding a head of hair buried in his chest.

“Ez!” he gushed, returning the hug in force. “I think you’re even taller than you were last week.”

Ezran pulled his head back so he could look up at his brother. He was really catching up to him, reaching all the way to Callum’s chest now. Harrow’s height genes were starting to kick in. “You think so?” he asked, “I’ll have to ask Dad to measure me again.”

A loud, disgruntled groan came from between the brothers. Ezran looked down and took a step back, a sheepish look taking over his face. “Oops. Sorry, Bait.” The glow toad’s skin had turned a smoky grey as he’d been squished between the pair.

“Hey, Bait. How’s it hanging?” The glow toad grunted, indifferent as his skin shifted back to its natural yellow hue. “Yeah, I pretty much expected that.”

“Let’s go find Dad,” Ezran said, buzzing, and the teenager whirled around on his heel to bolt down the hall.

Callum laughed. In so many ways, despite being less than a week from his sixteenth birthday, his brother could still act like a kid and excel at it. He hoped every day that Ezran never lost that sense of youth. It had been all too easy for Callum to lose it himself. “Ez, wait up. Slow down,” he called, but it was no use. His brother was already rounding the next corner, and he had no choice but to follow.

By the time he rounded the last corner, Harrow was standing in the doorway with Ezran, a victim of the teen’s latest bout of rambling. Ezran looked over his shoulder and beamed as he saw Callum, prompting Harrow to follow his gaze. The Governor of Katolis lit up at the sight of him.

“My boy,” said Harrow, “I was beginning to wonder if you’d ever visit.”

“Oh, come on. It’s been—what, two weeks?” Callum complained. “I can just leave if you’re gonna gripe about it.” The threat was an empty one; he was grinning all the while.

His stepfather extended his arms for a hug, and Callum gladly took the invitation. “Welcome home, son.”

“Will you stay for dinner?” Ezran asked, cautiously hopeful. It very nearly broke Callum’s heart to have to turn him down, but time simply would not permit such a stay.

“I’m sorry, Ez, but I’m only here for a few minutes. I have a trip to go on today. People are expecting me,” he said, his chest clenching as he watched Ezran’s face fall. “But I’ll be back in time for your birthday, and I promise I’ll stay then.”

“Okay,” Ezran mumbled in a way that contradicted him all on its own. He surged forward to hug Callum. “Have a fun trip.”

“I can promise you that I won’t,” Callum shot back. He sensed Ezran about to let go, so he tightened his hold and crushed him more tightly to him. Ezran tolerated the embrace for a few more seconds before starting to squirm, and Callum took it as his cue to release him.

“Dad, I’m gonna go find Ellis. She had something she wanted to show me,” Ezran said. Harrow nodded and the teenager dashed off down another hallway. Callum and Harrow watched him go until he disappeared around the corner.

Callum glanced at Harrow through the corner of his eye. “He’s still hanging out with Ellis a lot, huh?” Ellis was the daughter of one of the servants, she and Ezran were the same age.

“Every chance he gets,” said the Governor, hands on his hips as he stood tall. Yeah, if Ezran inherited anything from Harrow, he’d eventually have to look up at his little brother. How embarrassing that would be…

“You don’t think…?”

“That there’s something more there?” Harrow guessed, flashing a smile and chuckling, “I haven’t figured that out yet. But far be it from me to try and control his affections.”

“If that’s how it is, I just hope they’re safe. I’m too young to be an uncle.”

“And I a grandfather,” Harrow concurred. He turned his gaze on Callum, shifting focus to probe him now. Callum looked at the floor, fidgeting as his head wandered into the clouds of thought.

“Something on your mind, Callum?” Callum looked up at his stepfather. His arms were folded almost knowingly across his chest, but his green eyes were pensive and flooded with concern. Callum wrung his hands together, not-so-discreetly squeezing his palms and flexing his fingers as he weighed whether or not he should answer honestly.

“Dad…” he started, pausing to think, “If someone you used to know… someone that you thought you’d never see again, just sort of came back into your life all of a sudden…”

The shifting emotions on Governor Harrow’s face almost made him want to stop talking. Callum was trying to toe the line between truthful and inquisitive, and it didn’t seem to be working as well as he’d hoped. His stepfather knew that something was up, but Harrow likewise seemed to be weighing whether or not to push the envelope.

“And they were different,” Callum decided, feeling a little steadier in his choice of words, “Would you, I don’t know, try to still be their friend? Try to get back what you had with them?” He hoped his question was vague enough.

“Hmm…” Harrow stroked his thick stubble, considering the thought. “I suppose that I would try, yes. But I don’t think I would want to smother them. I’d be honest and show them that I’d missed them, but I’d try not to expect something of them. They might not want me around anymore. And if that’s the case, I’d trust them to tell me that, and I wouldn’t hold them back if they made that choice. Does that help?”

“I-I think so. It just really caught me off guard today,” Callum said, “But I have a feeling I’ll be seeing this person again soon. So, I’ll try what you said, I think.”

“Try not to expect too much. There’s a whole galaxy of reasons out there that might’ve changed this person, probably for the worse. I know you can wear your heart on your sleeve,” said Harrow.

Callum nodded. “I know. I’ll try. Thanks, Dad.” He surged forward to catch his stepfather in a hug, relaxing when Harrow reciprocated. “I’ll see you and Ez in a few days.”

“Have a safe trip, Callum. Be careful.”

Callum released his stepfather, holding him at arm’s length. “I’ll do my best,” he promised, and then he turned on his heel, determinedly heading for the launchpad where his ride was. The ship Opeli sent would take him to Dantooine, drop him off, and then return to Katolis, putting the onus on Callum to find his way back through other means.

Callum left the Governor where he’d found him, retracing his steps to walk back into the morning sun. It was still early, and yet he felt that so much had happened already with an entire day still ahead of him. Up ahead on one of the landing pads, a cargo cruiser had touched down, and its captain was waiting patiently outside the loading ramp.

He greeted the pilot and boarded the ship, brain switching off as he claimed the co-pilot seat. Together with the captain, he helped put the cruiser in the air and they left orbit, promptly jumping to hyperspace with a course locked for Dantooine. The ship’s computer took over the flight, and Callum let go of the controls to lean back in his chair.

He should’ve been able to relax now, but he found himself unable to. All he could focus on were fleeting memories of a white-haired Xadian girl who had once been his closest friend, only to one day vanish into thin air.

* * *

The trek back to her ship was a miserable one. She had left her rented speeder bike on the roof of the warehouse where the Rebels had come to pick up their munitions. Heading back there was going to be too much of a pain. She had bought off the clerk to avoid signing anything, so she was technically not bound to return the bike. Someone would find it on their own, eventually. It wasn’t her problem anymore.

She needed to get off-world as soon as possible before any sort of alarm was raised. Rayla considered her other ways back. There was a railcar circling the city, which meant she might be able to get fairly close to the garage she’d parked her ship in. Taking public transportation when she wasn’t chasing a target was hardly the ideal solution, but at the moment it seemed to be the only one. Rayla swallowed her pride and found the nearest station.

The rail station was crowded, but she wedged in between two waiting passengers and kept quiet until she had the chance to jump on the next available car. When one came, she carved out a space for herself by the car’s doors so she could disembark as quickly as possible.

Rayla made a face. The railcar smelled like a wet Tauntaun. If she were still a citizen of Katolis, she might be persuaded to petition Governor Harrow about it. But that would open a whole new can of worms that she was _not_ inclined to deal with right now.

Rayla’s clothes stuck to her skin, wet and chafing. She remembered her earpiece and tapped the tiny device hiding out by the shell of her ear, only to receive a squishy sound from the earpiece in response. The water from Callum’s pool must’ve broken it, inadvertently cutting her off from eavesdropping on the Nubis frequency.

 _Callum’s_ frequency.

Rayla kept her head down and her hood up after that, avoiding any and all looks she might’ve received and looking out the window until the car reached a stop that was only a block away from the garage. From there, Rayla did much of the same, melting into the crowd and avoiding attention until she reached her destination.

The garage was just as busy as when she’d arrived, if not more so. The blue-skinned Rodian from earlier was standing by her ship, patiently waiting. He seemed to have done as she’d asked, keeping her vessel in the right condition to take off immediately. The Rodian tensed up when he spotted her, chattering at her in more garbled Basic as she walked within earshot.

“My gratitude,” she growled as she passed, tossing a fistful of credits at the worker as a tip. She didn’t even care how much it was. Rayla stomped up the ramp into the belly of the _New Moon,_ flicking the switch just inside that sent the ramp retreating back into the ship’s belly.

Safe in the security of her ship, she discarded her broken earpiece and fiddled with the radio, holding onto a slim hope that she hadn’t heard anything simply because the little device was ruined. But no chatter came through as she fired up the engines and departed the hangar. Callum must’ve shut the frequency down completely for the time being, deducing that she’d tracked him by listening to his transmissions.

He always was too smart for his own good. He’d let his guard down on his home planet, failing to expect that anyone might come after him, and now that he’d narrowly escaped her once again, he was taking extra precautions to avoid being followed.

Nubis was Callum. _Nubis_ was _Callum._

Rayla put her head in her hands as her ship arrowed its way out of the atmosphere and into orbit, sucking in deep breath after deep breath to try and steady her hammering heart. She had so many thoughts racing through her head, so many feelings, that she couldn’t focus. Every word she and Callum had exchanged—the first of their kind in a decade—replayed nonstop in her mind, Rayla hearing them over and over again.

The console attached to the computer began to beep, a fluorescent blue light flashing at her to indicate she had an incoming call. Glyphs on the screen revealed who exactly was calling her, and Rayla groaned out loud. She couldn’t very well ignore this one.

Rayla pressed the ‘answer’ button a little too hard, and after a brief moment of booting up, a hologram of Rayla’s least favorite person materialized above the console.

“Claudia.”

Emperor Viren’s daughter brushed a lock of her hair behind her ear, flashing a dishonest smile. _“Rayla. I was just calling to see how your mission was going.”_

“Fine, Claudia. I’m leaving Katolis now,” Rayla said through gritted teeth. Wonderful timing.

_“Oh? So, we should expect you back on the Dragon’s Fall within a few hours?”_

Rayla winced, quietly weighing her options as quickly as she could. Claudia would notice her apprehension if she stalled for very long. “No,” she decided, “I have a lead on a Rebel base in another system. I’m following a homing beacon now.”

 _“How_ exciting _,”_ said Claudia’s image, _“And I presume that Nubis is finally dead?”_

“Yes,” Rayla said curtly, lying through her teeth, “Dead as a doornail.”

_“Excellent. I’ll report the news to the Emperor immediately.”_

Rayla stiffened. “You don’t have to—” she sputtered, cutting herself off and wincing. She briefly glanced at the hologram of Claudia, the young witch staring daggers at her that seemed to sink into Rayla’s skin even though her hand could’ve easily passed right through the image.

 _“Is there a reason that I shouldn’t?”_ Claudia asked, measured and almost taunting. Her robes were flawlessly straight.

Rayla did her best to mask her resulting gulp. Claudia had an unusual way of getting to her, and she hated it. “No,” said Rayla, “I just wanted to be the one to tell him myself. I’ve been chasing Nubis for a long time, as you know.”

 _“Hm. Yes, I do know,”_ Claudia’s hologram drawled at her, _“Very well, Rayla. I’ll let you have all the glory you’ve so earned. Keep in touch.”_

“Thank you, Claudia,” Rayla replied. She reached for the button that would end the call, relieved that Claudia didn’t butt in with anything else. The button sank under her finger and the hologram disintegrated, the ship falling eerily silent. Rayla sighed and looked at her feet.

She wouldn’t have been able to kill Callum even if she’d wanted to.

* * *

The _New Moon_ emerged from hyperspace again a few hours later, this time facing a large, remote, and forested planet. Dantooine was almost literally in the middle of nowhere, which meant it was the perfect place for a band of insurgents to hide out and gather their strength in secret.

The homing beacon beeped, indicating that Rayla was close as she directed her ship down into Dantooine’s atmosphere. It was a cloudy day on the forest world, which meant some extra cover. She followed the signal doggedly, passing over miles and miles of forest until she finally reached an area of highlands. The ground rose up in enormous crags, trees and similar vegetation completely covering them. Rayla had to pilot the _New Moon_ carefully, darting through the plateaus. One wrong move, and she’d suffer a frankly embarrassing death.

Rayla glanced at the computer screen, noticing that her beacon’s signal had gone stagnant just up ahead. She jerked on the controls and slowed her ship, spotting a waterfall at the top of a crag. There was a small clearing by the shore, so she landed the ship there right on the edge of the tree line.

With the ship on the ground, Rayla transferred the homing beacon to her wrist cuff, pressing a few of the buttons so she could track the signal later. She rose from her seat and tugged on her robes as if to tighten them, feeling around to ensure she had everything she needed. Her lightsabers felt heavy on her back and she brushed her fingers across the cold metal hilts.

“I will fix this.”

With steeled nerves, Rayla approached the back of her ship and pressed the button on the console that would drop the loading ramp. The walkway disconnected and dug into the dirt on the ground outside, letting Rayla disembark. A strong breeze kicked up as her boots sank into the ground, distorting the roar of the waterfall beside her.

Rayla took a moment to breathe in Dantooine’s air and then brought her arm up, tapping a few more buttons on her wrist cuff. The built-in machine beeped at her, acquiring the signal of the homing beacon. Rayla listened to the sequence of beeps. They were pointing her west, and the little noises were close together. She wasn’t far.

It wasn’t too long before Rayla heard the unmistakable rumble of engines from above her. Without wasting a second to think twice, she darted into the undergrowth, eyes scanning all around her to find the source. A ship dashed overhead a moment later—by the looks of it, a cargo ship. It wasn’t the one that she was tracking, but Rayla still watched it carefully. She highly doubted that two ships could arrive in the same area of a planet in the middle of nowhere within a few minutes of each other and simply be a coincidence. On a more populous world, she wouldn’t think anything of it.

The cargo ship curved around the bend of a nearby plateau and inexplicably dropped in altitude, disappearing beneath the lip of the crag. Rayla grinned—that was where she needed to go. She left her hiding place and picked up the pace, nearly jogging the rest of the way. She leaped through sections of underbrush, the tracker in her wrist cuff indicating that she was getting closer to her target as she cut her way through the forest.

She eventually reached the cliff’s edge and slowed, stepping carefully closer to the precipice. She looked over the edge and found a fairly large base close to the ground that was nestled in between two cliffs, making it difficult to see from most angles. Little shapes moved back and forth across the grounds, milling about the facility.

A base. Dantooine really was the perfect place for something like this. There was hardly any civilization, which meant no Imperial presence, which meant total and complete secrecy.

Rayla reached over and shut off her homing beacon. There was no need for it anymore.

The itch to go down there was almost overwhelming, but she stayed her hand. She didn’t know if Callum was somewhere down there. Though she’d overheard that he was heading here, he might’ve changed his plans after she’d broken into his penthouse and tried to kill him.

What she could do was wipe this base off the map. And Rayla knew just how to do it. Her homing beacon had been tracking the crate of munitions, and she guessed they’d probably be in the hangar with the ship that had delivered them. If she could get inside and rig the munitions to explode… no more Dantooine base. She’d deal the Rebels a blow and be able to return to the Emperor with at least some good news.

But she couldn’t do it now, not in broad daylight. Climbing down from here would be a time-consuming ordeal, and she’d likely be spotted in the middle of it. The Rebels definitely had money; considering they had a base like this, they could probably wheel a particle cannon out there to blast her off the cliff.

She had to wait until nightfall.

Rayla stepped away from the edge, walking to the tree line to search for a suitable spot to rest. Not too far in, there was a thick branch that was fairly low to the ground. Rayla scaled the trunk in two quick, Force-assisted steps so she could perch on the branch and lean back against the trunk, finally allowing her tense muscles to relax.

“Moonrise, it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How do we feel about that Ezran appearance? I'm still weighing his role in the story too, because in what I've written so far it's really the Callum and Rayla show. That's okay though, right?
> 
> If there's anyone out there that wants to help out with this story, from co-writing to just being a sounding board for ideas, I'd love to hear from you. Otherwise, please consider leaving a comment! Tell me what I'm doing well and what I'm not doing well, what you think about the story's direction--all feedback is welcome, positive and negative. Until next time, thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, please consider commenting whether you liked this or hated it. A couple things I'd like pointers on:
> 
> \- Does Soren feel right here? I struggle at writing him and it's something I would like to get better at. I don't want his comedic relief tendencies to break any tension or immersion, and I haven't completely figured out his place in the story yet so any pointers will be much appreciated.
> 
> \- Am I selling Rayla well enough? More of her backstory will of course be explained as time goes on, but writing her as a dark side assassin was challenging. Probably because I can't imagine her being an "evil" character like I can Viren or Claudia.
> 
> \- This story isn't just gonna be a port of the original trilogy with TDP characters. I will instead be mashing up details and themes from various eras in Star Wars canon (both old and new) to make this its own thing. However, I am going for a sort of Old Republic vibe here. Is that coming across well?
> 
> PSA: I'm open to taking on a beta reader for help with editing and to be a sounding board for ideas. If that interests you, shoot me a message.
> 
> Thanks everyone for reading! I hope you enjoyed and that I can update soon!


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